What's next?

I will use this space over the coming weeks to explore in words some of the ideas which I hope to develop in the next year (maybe more). I'll try to describe the area I wish to focus on in general now, and then explore further specific elements of it in future posts.

I also feel that already, just 3 months after starting to write in this (virtual) space, my aims are changing rapidly - casting the very title of this blog into question. This was brought home by a recent post by Geoffrey Edwards on his blog paradoxes and consequences describing his feelings when entering the job market, and how his approach to career moves, etc has changed in the intervening years. Geoffrey suggests that what happens as one emerges from the pre-defined path of school and undergraduate education is more a result of 'who you are' than your 'pedigree' or personal history, and that worrying about the future is unnecessary - events will take place, connections will be made and life unfolds. I think that this very closely reflects my own feeling, and perhaps the title of this blog suggests a sense of worry about the future which doesn't entirely characterise my personal approach! Always interesting to hear how others feel/felt when at this stage of finding direction.

Another of Geoffrey's blogs, From Othodoxy to Paradoxy, is also particularly interesting for me because it also picks up on the theme of paradox - an idea which seems to have cropped up increasingly regularly in my own reading, to the extent that it is shaping the direction I want to take in future research and thinking. Geoffrey presents paradox (or paradoxy) in opposition to the orthodox (orthdoxy); as an alternative approach to the status quo. The twin interests that have developed from my undergraduate work are the way in which we conceptualise nature and society (generally in dualistic opposition), and the (currently slow-moving) transition towards sustainability. At present I'm considering some research examining how the structure of higher education institutions affects the dominant view of nature as separate from society, and whether these dominant modes of thought (encouraged by educational institutions?) are hindering social change for sustainability.

In order to explore some of these ideas, I hope to post here in the future some thoughts about the way educational institutions are divided into disciplines and the potential of interdisciplinary study, the field of critical pedagogy - which I have recently started exploring, and other themes which will lay the groundwork in this area - as they come to me.